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If there’s one thing you can learn by looking at the current WiiWare release list it’s that the Wii certainly has no shortage of quick and casual puzzle games. Some might say that there are too many, but can we ever have too much of a good thing? Madstone is, literally, another falling blocks puzzle game in the vein of Tetris..

About The Game

MadStone is a dynamic, tension-filled puzzle game with an earth-shaking twist! In a landscape filled with crumbling ruins, you use the Wii Remote to smash through rubble and release the power of ancient magical spirits. As you gain in power, you can literally shake the earth itself, unleashing vast amounts of energy and leaving your opponent in ruins.

In MadStone, you clear through towers of stone in order to collect the magical elements, called SkySigns, that are trapped within. The goal is to get your SkySigns (moons in the screenshots) to the bottom of the screen, where they are collected in your mana pool. Collect enough, and you can execute a super move that causes an avalanche of destruction!

That's exactly what I was thinking, then I noticed that there is a gauge on top color-coded to each player, and when one player started to do really good, the color for that player started to fill more of the gauge than the other, and I think it is possible to destroy those moon things so you do have to be a little more careful about which block you shoot than they made it look.

The objective of the game is to collect MadStones (moons in these screenshots) in the energy pool at the bottom of the screen. You do this by creating chain reactions of falling blocks that break each other and create a cascade toward the bottom of the screen.

Those of you who noticed the donut-shaped meter in the middle of the screen are very observant. As each player collects more and more moons, the meter fills up more in that player's favor. Eventunally, one player fills the meter and wins the match.

We just put the finishing touches on the game and are now testing it before we ship it to Nintendo to be released. We'll be putting out new screenshots and videos shortly. In the meantime, enjoy the other great titles on WiiWare!

Virus--The single player mode is a sequence of levels, each with different goals. In some modes you win by filling up the donut meter, just like in 2-player versus mode. In other modes you race the CPU to get a certain score. And in some levels there is no opponent at all, and you must solve a puzzle within a certain number of moves. We've got 5 difficulty levels in single player. Beginner is super easy and someone who's never played the game should be able to get through it no sweat. Master mode though, well, let's just say I can barely pass it and I play the game several hours a day!

Strade--The MadStones (Moons) won't fall into the energy pool unless the blocks below them are broken. Blocks come at two "damage levels." Undamaged blocks must be damaged twice before they break. Damaged blocks only have to be damaged once. A block can be damaged manually by the player, or by another block falling on top of it. It is by making use of this second method that you can create chain reactions that will set the whole screen falling. The best players don’t break random blocks, they specifically target blocks that will set off chain reactions.

i am not trying to be rude, but can't you still break random blocks to get through the level? eventually if you click enough you will get it. and if you get lucky, you will get big combos just clicking random blocks.

After a second look, it reminds of Drill Dozer for some reason. And wow, thanks for the reply Stevens! Still, like strade32, I question if "strategic-clicking" can beat "mad-clicking." I can see how clicking only the undamaged blocks could trigger a combo after a while, but does it have that great of an advantage over just randomly clicking blocks?

Hi Strade,Good question! Breaking random blocks would sort of be like placing random blocks in Tetris. Yes, you probably would eventually score some lines, but you'd be far outpaced by a player that's being more careful with their moves.

Just to give you an idea, when I do random moves as fast as I can against a medium level CPU, it outscores me by a factor of ten. (And wins really fast.)

Blaster,The game itself is done. We're giving it a final polish and sending it to Nintendo for their testing process. Unfortunately, Nintendo has asked me not to say any more than that about the release date.

Unfortunately, being a tiny team of three people, we aren't able to include all the features we'd like to. This includes online features.

I'm hoping that if you all like the game enough, we'll get the funding to do a much expanded version with online play for Disc-based Wii and DS!

@Riverman Jacobis your team happy with Nintendo so far. don't you find it frustrating that you cant tell other people when your game is going to come out. sometimes developers don't even get notified when their game comes out so i hear. Do you find any problems with them.

Andy,Haha, I don't exactly know what I'm allowed to say, but I'll say it anyway:

I've absolutely loved working with Nintendo on WiiWare!

I've worked with several other distributors and publishers, and no other company has consistently been so helpful or dedicated to bringing quality games to their service. They give us the support we need. Their payment system is better. They're more open-minded about different concepts.

As far as the release dates, this is more of a logistical concern. They can't give a release date because they don't know if MadStone will pass their internal tests! If we fail a bunch of times, the game will come out later.

But yeah, Nintendo is far and away the best publisher/platform I've ever worked with. As of right now, I don't have much desire to develop for any non-Nintendo platforms.

Your right Finalkingdom13. Online isn't everything and I know that now. So if Riverman Jacob wasn't able to add this because of lack of support I'll forgive him. In fact I might buy it as long it is 500 Wii Points.

Looks very interesting. Now that the game's web site has confirmed to me that it's a "hold the Wiimote sideways" kind of game, I just might give it a try! Man, so many Wiiware games I'd like to download, so little memory!

Funny enough, one of the three developers on this project is one of my college professors (Jacob is a fairly recent alumni from my college =P). We played it for a while today, and it was quite a bit of fun! Once you really grasp the mechanics, it becomes much more than simple button mashing and is a very fun multi-player affair. I haven't tried single player, but I'll give it a shot when I download it onto my own Wii later tonight.

what's there doesn't seem worth 800 points to me. it feels like a flash game i could find online for free.it's pretty, but there just isn't that much to it. i like the puzzles a lot, but i wish there was a separate puzzle mode. not a terrible game, but definitely not a great game.oh, and it gets tiring shaking the remote (but maybe i am just shaking too hard)